


Auditory

by Wolfsmilch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Living in the Archive, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Season/Series 01, Unrequited Crush, Workplace, character backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-14 21:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11791545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsmilch/pseuds/Wolfsmilch
Summary: During the overwhelmingly long nights in the Archive, Martin thinks about his past and his future.





	Auditory

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last of my little Martin/John fics I previously posted on tumblr, but archiving them here feels right :D  
> Hope you enjoy!

During the weeks in which he was living in the archive, Martin started to feel increasingly alone and abandoned. The silent building, no living soul except for the night watchman, who he couldn’t bother for more than ten minutes at a time, and the only sounds the reverberations in the old stone.  

One evening, he was almost driven insane by a dripping faucet, the harsh echoes starting to resemble approaching footsteps. In an attempt to drown out the sound, he started listening to some of Jonathan’s recordings. Not the ones on tape of course, but the ones that were easy to debunk, and could be recorded digitally. Those had more standard themes like milky apparitions in photographs or things going missing that when followed up on usually turned out to have been removed by the housekeeper.

But Martin didn’t listen to the recordings because of the stories, he just wanted to hear John talk. To listen to that rough and throaty voice that was often rude and unpleasant, but whose rumbling depth had the opposite effect on Martin. It managed to calm him down before going to sleep, as if Jonathan’s arms were around him, watching him during his troubled nights.

He had always been attracted to deep voices, so his intrusive  _what if_  thoughts about his boss were not really a surprise. Of course he kept it strictly professional when talking to him, Martin knew from the first day that this was not something he dared to pursue. No matter how long it had been.

His love life didn’t exactly rival Tim’s, partly because he was slow to trust and allow people into his flat, much less his life, and partly because no one would think of using the word _attractive_ in relation to him. Not that his pale skin, the red hair that teenage Martin used to dye black, and his unproportional body, that used to be covered exclusively by metal band shirts, couldn’t be attractive to anyone. He just hadn’t met many people that thought so.

So it’s not surprising that he wasn’t an expert on serious relationships, the only thing coming even remotely close was a romance with one of his tutors in his last year of school, and that had ended after a few months of confusion, infatuation and sexual awakening. David had been a few years older than Martin, but whether he was in university or working he couldn’t remember. He just came into his life, made it both more and less complicated, and left.

Not that older, slightly mysterious men had become Martin’s thing now, he didn’t live in one of those romance novels after all. He did have some more or less short relationships, but just never met anyone worth staying around for. He was just happy that having a truly rough year hadn’t made him more reckless: the stress, the craving for a diversion and that beautiful voice were a potentially dangerous combination. 

Since they met, Martin considered John’s voice the most attractive thing about him, not that the man was ugly, he was sort of average looking, tall but not athletic, with short black hair and grey eyes that always seemed awake, even in a tired face that put on its five o'clock shadow first thing in the morning. But it was his voice that Martin had fallen in love with.

He suspected that Sasha knew about it, god knows how she found out, but she managed to get confirmation by tricking him. One lunch break she started talking about how weird John was and how stupid his voice sounded, something that he may have objected to a bit too indignantly. She didn’t push him to confess however, only joked that she believed Jonathan had sounded like this since the age of twelve.

And so, to battle the loneliness and isolation, he had gotten into the habit of listening to his recordings, something that might sound innocent enough, if not for the part he really wasn’t proud of. Every once in a while he would replay parts of them, making John steal some poor soul’s words again and again, just to hear his voice say things like  _I loved him_  or  _my boyfriend_.

Which he knew was just him torturing himself, after all, Martin could just tell him. Just one short sentence or one little question and then it would be over, one way or another. Could be so easy. 

John, I really like you. 

Do you want to grab a drink with me sometime? 

Well, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been fucked since –

Maybe not that one.

He knew John wasn’t very comfortable with that topic, you needed to be blind to miss his avoidance techniques. It could just be because he didn’t want to talk to his colleagues about it. There were other options of course. Not liking him, probably the most realistic one. Impossible to find out without asking. 

Maybe he should try being more reckless, life was short after all. Bit of an oxymoron.

No, maybe it was best if he stayed away from John, found another distraction. As soon as he could leave the archive of course.


End file.
